05/14/20
I guess I was saving this piece for reputation’s sake, really to save face with my family so they’d think less less of me, and by family I mean the wider remit of important people in my life, not just blood. I never felt anything negative or wrong about the events, aside from the actions of the government and law enforcement, but those close with me surely would, as precedent always instructed to not rock the boat. I have, in my life, been nothing but a boat rocker, however, so these events should come as no surprise to any who knows me.
07/20/19 intro
So this piece is from a few months ago when I got locked up in an immigration cell, about 10ft by 10ft with a steel toilet bowl and “bench”, for having a few grams of weed in my car. I wrote this before we were instructed to care again so deeply about the conditions of the southern border, and the mistreatment and abuses of power taking place out there for the past couple decades. Having had my own miniature tasting of it, what follows is my next-day reaction, with a later follow up today, about 9 months later:
10-31-18
I knew the second I saw the dog that today was about to become quite a bit longer. Ah well, it’s always good to experience something new.
I pulled the classic “it isn’t mine,” they bought it like you’d think.
They were quite sneaky about it, crafty you see, almost like they had some experience in this.
Dog Handler, squat, more red than brown Hispanic man (all men throughout, of course) informed me they were only really trying to catch large scale smugglers of people and drugs, so if I just came clean about any small possession, they really wouldn’t care.
Perfect, I thought. All they’ll do is send me on my way after the local sheriff finishes with me.
Hmm, I see. So close. But seriously, fuck that right?
I mean, he’s saying to trust him, he’s a gun-wielding stranger who just got me to give him the keys to my car with understood permission it’s getting a very intimate inspection where they’ll find and smell every picked booger scraped onto the bottom of each seat.
A couple of months ago, this guy could have been captain of some cage-match hunger games no doubt taking place in our kiddie concentration camps.
No, I know they’ll book me anyways, let’s make ‘em work for it, kill some time I guess. I mean, fuck them.
They tell us that one of us must claim possession of what I will later discover to be .014lbs of marijuana. If neither do, automatically goes to the driver, who of course on this very rare occasion in the car together was her. Again, fuck that.
So I say it’s mine and ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please, the inevitable moment that we’ve all been waiting for, appearing for the first time live and in-person, Your Miranda’s Rights! Legs spread, hair searched, and a long, grey afternoon in a white 8×8 cell.
Naturally, it is Immigration and Naturalization Services that I’m in trouble with, to throw some extra spice in this resident alien’s stew.
As soon as he found the weed, Dog Handler turned mean, treating me like the dirty moral violator that I am and heaping shame upon me, duly deserved.
Rookie’s the one that did most of the processing, Nicholas.
He had a soft face, gentle eyes, a genuine kindness that I knew he could turn off instantly to be the cold enforcer of justice his country needs him to be, but cold does not mean rude. He was polite, kindly throughout. Small comfort when gentle eyes ruin lives.
Fat-Ass oversaw proceedings throughout. Showing Rookie the ropes on what appeared to be his first day, he didn’t care a damn about any of this, his eyes had a cynical smile clearly revealing he’d seen it all before and really didn’t give a shit. Just more work. Just more dumb kids.
I’ve long imagined the inside of a cell. I have read enough political philosophy in my life to come across my fair share of prison cell letters and books. So here it was in the flesh. Breathe and stay calm for now. Stay very, very calm and be a nice respectful person who will cause no trouble.
Dog Handler’s temper flashes through hot as he interrogates us. The one example that sticks with me comes second-hand: 4 hours later as we leave, my partner goes inside to the bathroom. She’s been outside in the cold rain meanwhile, given the choice between that and a cell, she wisely chose freedom. When half-way through the door marked clearly LADIES, Dog-Handler said she can use the one in there, pointing to the recently vacated cell, where the love of my life who I would kill and die for was made to then pee in a room with three men, as she could not and would not close this door to the cell. The toilet he made her use was my same steel bowl with water, cold and violating in an immediate way.
Why would he do that? Why would he attempt to humiliate her like that, for what gain? The ends of power, the remainder, excess. He could, so he would, oh fuck should. In this world, could is what counts, kid.
My thoughts accelerated at moments in that cell, whirring overwhelmingly fast, about my safety, how long would this take, what were they doing, why did I feel so utterly powerless, how often does this happen, how could this alter my life path, could I die today, how well will I survive imprisoned, is this small taste of lone confinement – solitary – trapped alone in a tiny cell too small for your thoughts, losing all sense of time and rhythm and where anything was going or why?
For what?
Some sneeze worth of weed?
How many lives have we lost? Why? For what? Who can I fight on this? What can I blame and reform?
All that upholds their moral actions are their guns and the violence they carry, and the very deep, glowering depths that that violence can reach. We accept quite freely the near impunity our enforcement’s actions, we always feel bigger behind the big stick, not so in front.
Yet our fear overcomes us. In our fear of the shadows in front, we let the backswing kill off, dumbly, someone loved.
Let us prepare more by turning shadows towards light instead. Information, empathy, an objective examination of the world around us to create a wholly better life. I dream of what cannot be without radical and revolutionary action, so naturally, my evolution into prison-cell philosopher is blossoming.
For I understand too the violence fighting itself cannot lose. If I kill your warrior, then his son’s father and brother shall want to kill me, and if he can’t get to me, then point him to who he can kill.
Violence begets violence forevermore.
But I want these men gone. I wanted everything they claimed to represent, the institutions they respected and the doctrines they enforced to be wholly wiped from existence, I wanted them in all senses gone. Gone.
How does non-violence do that?
We need power, true power, and tools from every source. Information about the mechanism of the current institutions of power and how they operate, financial independence and capital to execute a long and costly political agenda without fear of reprisal – fuck-you money, public support from a broad coalition representing the entirety of the country and rejecting none. Power weakens in the cracks, and these we must learn to exploit. We cannot leverage what we do not know, nor have the capabilities to enact anything without some form of power our own, and the great American drive of individualism has left me now powerless completely.
I am human nearing Godhood, I am powerless and dying now trapped, caged by my own, posing no threat but a few grams of grass.
And I’m oh so very far from home.
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07-20-19
So typing that up and re-reading it again later, I guess it sounds like I was still pretty upset about the whole thing the next day. It mostly just makes me laugh now, roll my eyes at the ludicrousness of the whole situation, the whole waste of time it all ended up being for everybody involved to appease some voters and employ some blue-collar workers. Let me finish the story for you now, I’ll try not to get so caught up in the feelings or righteousness this time. Well, at least not until after.
I sat in the cell from about 8:45 in the morning until somewhere around 3:15 that same afternoon. Dog-Handler threatened me with deportation when he found out I’m not a citizen, but merely a lowly permanent-resident, one too afraid to commit. Why didn’t I have my papers on me, I needed to have that card on me at all times or else they could kick me out, they might kick me out this time, blah blah blah, typical scare tactics. Had it been Fat-Ass, it might have worked. He seemed to be here for the job, but this was Dog-Handler. Anybody can read a guy like this a mile away. I believe the word is thug, but that’s too loaded these days, so we’ll stick with bully. He wanted to see me scared, he wanted me to plead and to look weak. He felt empowered, and he used his power to attempt to feel strong.
Too bad he’d caught a reader, too bad I’d earned a valuable education. Had I been who he thought I was, I know I’d have been scared. Rights are fluid concepts so that the ignorant man can never be sure whether he has them or not. When those in authority, those smarter and more educated, instruct you have not, it’s a natural reaction to believe them. I knew he could not kick me out though, I knew that these were empty threats, and so I could convince myself into courage like a fool. And if he could, he would, and I would in turn adapt, rise and overcome. These small aggressors wield wanton over us the great fear of death. Let them come.
“Sure, ok” to the officer with eyes down. I can still remember this feeling most of all from the time, the feeling of looming and desperate-to-show-itself violence. I’ve seen so many videos of innocent men dying, heard even more stories about meaningless violence beyond reason. Any excuse to crack the whip, and whip crack. I kept hearing the name Sandra Bland, kept thinking of the imprisoned men decades deep into solitary confinement, feeling myself sink into lappings of mad. A drain sat in the middle of the cell, how much blood had washed down it? They stripped the cord out of my sweatpants to prevent suicide. Had anyone died in this cell? That’s the feeling that really sticks with me still, the feeling of powerlessness and potential doom at dumb hands. When I really get back in that feeling, the eye-roll turns back to indignation.
After about 30 minutes of empty threats, they went back to manning the checkpoint, and keeping safe our sweet land. Since Rookie was still new, Fat-Ass walked him through how to do a booking, I presented the perfect learning opportunity. My cell had a tiny window at eye level, and if I focused I could vaguely hear them on the other side, so I sat and watched for most the time.
The call to local law enforcement, as this was their jurisdiction. Seeing as we were in Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas that could be a while.
A young local boy came out eventually, the small-town justice arbiter, probably not much older than me. With a bulletproof vest, he pulled me out of the cell, and we walked off to his raised truck parked just outside. He had less agenda, but these powers ranked above him, so he used his discretion to lower my charge to paraphernalia. It took about ten minutes from when the sheriff arrived to when we got to depart. When outside, I saw first my love shivering in the cold rain, and also all the belongings from our car laid out in the rain after the search, getting ruined. They denied her the right to return the objects or herself to the car, as we now represented the perfect example of shame in their pillory, a lesson to all the cars driving past.
I’ll end it here with a small word of advice: beware in bringing marijuana to Big Bend.
This is very well written and feels so relevant with the current political climate in the US